Andrew Baker has been a writer and editor for The Telegraph since 1997, and is deputy editor of the Weekend section. He blogs about chocolate.

Chocolate blog: Snickers on Mount Olympus

In the lively aftermath of this blog's Hershey vs Dairy Milk debate I compiled my own list of favourite treats – and then had to answer a good number of enquiries about where to get hold of some of my more exotic favourites.

London is fairly well served in this regard: a good selection is to be found in Fortnum & Mason, at the Whole Foods Market in Kensington, and at the smart chocolaterie Alexeeva & Jones in Notting Hill.

I'd love to hear about similarly wide-ranging stores elsewhere, and meanwhile I had a close encounter with an online alternative when I was invited to a tasting with the people behind Cocoa Runners.

This is a subscription service that sends members a box once a month containing four artisan bars from all over the world. The experts who make the selection have travelled all over to visit the people making the bars, and the stories and characters they have come across are almost as enthralling as the chocolate they have discovered.

My latest box from them included a bar from Friis Holm in Denmark and a glorious chunk of Honduras 70 per cent in a brown paper and string wrapper that will have the more hipster end of the chocolate market in raptures.

Cocoa Runners is a terrific idea and and can only help spread the word that chocolate is something worth taking seriously – by which I mean consuming with a bit of thought as well as a smile.

I have also been having a lot of fun with my chocolate-loving colleagues tasting boxes – soft-centre collections for the Christmas market.

Our conclusions are here – with a tip of the hat to Marks & Spencer who we reckon best combined wit and presentation with truly scrumptious centres in their Amazing Collection of Fabulous Personalities.

One of the other revelations of this tasting was another mainly mail-order set-up, the Grown-Up Chocolate Company. What these cunning people do very well is to take the flavour combinations of childhood favourites and recreate them using top-notch ingredients for a (largely) adult audience.

Their bars can be found in well-informed delis, but their main modus operandi is a tasting club for fresh handmade chocolates – a different selection every month, with comments welcomed so that future delights can be crafted to the tastes of their fans.

Like Cocoa Runners, this is a timely idea that deserves a wider audience – and I should say that of all the delights that have crossed my desk since the blog was established, the item that has received the most rapturous response from my colleagues is the Grown-up Chocolate Company's Salted Peanut Caramel Cracker bar.

This is essentially what a Marathon – or Snickers if you insist – would taste like if reformulated by the Chocolatier of the Gods to be served on Mount Olympus. It may offend purists but it is undeniably, incontestably gorgeous and gets our vote for most delectable chocolate confection ever.

Who can challenge it? Over to you. What is the best chocolate confectionery bar (not just chocolate, but along the lines of Mars, Snickers, Milky Way etc) of all time?

Discoveries of the Week: The smashing Amelia Rope has three flavoursome new bars out – delicious dark with raspberry and a 75 per cent Tanzanian with sea salt that I find all but irresistible. Smiley, dedicated Amelia herself swears by the the White Edition 05 with more sea salt and crunchy toasted coconut flakes. This is what the Milky Bar Kid should reach for when he grows up.

Bit of a cheek to call this a discovery since Willie Harcourt-Cooze has been doing great things for a good while, but I ought to acknowledge the fact that his Madagascan Gold Sambirano 71 is a terrific chunk of single estate excellence bursting with those Madagascan fruity notes and great value too – I often devour a sneaky square on the way back home with the Saturday shopping.